An excellent movie, well documented and presented by director Maria Shrader and writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Of course the two lead actresses, Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan, deservedly garnered all the praise for their roles as the investigators from the New York Times, but they would have been nothing without the writer and director who should get all the prizes. They let some of the conversations linger and are not at all rushed. We know it took years for the abuse to surface, and for a long time in the film the reporters found it so hard for anyone to go on the record. But their persistence pays off and the newspaper gets it's scoop and law enforcement gets their man. All down to Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. I liked Patricia Clarkson as their boss and the fact we were shown the two reporters with their supportive husbands as a counter to what went on.
Was I the only one who saw two alternatives to the title? Not only the tightness of the corset Elizabeth has to wear, (is this a dig at Hollywood's ideal actress) but the restrictive nature of her position as Empress of the Austrian/Hungarian Empire. The film follows just one year of her life, as she reaches her fortieth birthday in 1877. This is not a standard biopic by any means. There are modern touches from a couple of songs to props from today. The story itself maybe flimsy, but everything else was superb. Vicky Krieps is brilliant as Elizabeth, she must be up for the best actress Oscar. I thought Katharina Lorenz was excellent as her closest friend Countess Marie Festetics. The saddest scene in a movie for years came when she is refused to leave to marry.
The cinematography is top drawer, the interiors are exquisite, whether a banquet, a dinner or private dining. As are the locations of palaces and countryside, except I have never seen a mountain in Northamptonshire. All part of the irreverent production design. But it is Austrian director Marie Kreutzer who has given us such a wonderful film.
Of course the costumes are terrific and Camille's modern soundtrack works well. Those modern songs include harpist Dina Nimax playing the Rolling Stones' "As Tears Go By", and a stable boy strumming (ukulele or violin) and singing to Kris Kristopherson's "Help Me Make It Through The Night". Then the end credits are supplemented by Elizabeth dancing to Soap&Skin's "Italy". There are numerous excellent reviews of the film including those on slantmagazine.com and moviejawn.com.
After all the five star reviews, I was at first completely underwhelmed by what looked to me as a typical arthouse film where nothing happens. In a way I was right, it doesn't. Just a divorced father Calum (Paul Mescal) and his eleven year old daughter Sophie (an amazing Francesca Corio) spending a week in a cheap Turkish resort. Despite their separation they are both very close in their time together. So that is it. That's where the one star audience reviews come in. This is definitely not a mainstream movie with a plot and so on. So what is it? I was going to say experimental and improvised, it certainly had that sort of feel.
However there are images that stick in the memory like no other traditional film. It's Sophie who carries the narrative, meeting a boy at the arcade, gathering tourists to sing at her father's birthday, trying to get her dad to join her at karaoke and failing. You would have to go on the numerous glowing reviews from the critics to find their take: "childhood memories" of the glimpses of the older Sophie? The editing is all over the place, looking back it seems to me that it looks like those scenes from their 1990's video camera, short glimpses of doing not a lot. Those fragmented memories of the older Sophie. At the time it felt somewhat boring and a little sad, why wouldn't it?
Director Charlotte Wells has certainly made something different. The colours are those you would expect from a Mediterranean resort. There is occasionally an underlying feeling of dread that never comes to the surface. And she does elicit an extraordinary performance from young Corio. What they both do next will be interesting.
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